


Butterflies and needles line my seamed-up join

by Teatrolley



Series: your hands around my neck [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Slow Burn, and so is recovery, but both might just be possible, mentions of torture, sorting through feelings is difficult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:24:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Apparently,” Bond says, “I’m your comfort.”<br/>“Don’t flatter yourself,” Q says. Bond is probably right, but like hell Q is going to admit that.<br/>“I’m not,” Bond says. “Psych’s words.”<br/>“Hm.”<br/>Q watches Bond with his comfortable body, gentle hands and large grin, and he watches the foot or so of space between them. Bond probably wouldn’t mind if he closed it, the space. So, he does.</p><p>_________________</p><p>Q and Bond are kidnapped, held in captivity, and tortured. Then they are saved. Now they have to find out how to live with what they've experienced, and how to sort through how many of the lingering feelings between them are actually real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterflies and needles line my seamed-up join

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Alt-J's Hunger of the Pine:  
> Sleeplessly embracing  
> Butterflies and needles  
> Line my seamed-up join  
> This is a sequel, but can definitely be read on its own, too.

Q wakes up in a bed just like the one he’d dreamed of for ages; warm, comfortable and engulfing him. No cement floor felt through it, making his body ache. The duvet cocooning him is thick and can easily supply enough heat to keep him warm, which is, at this point, a novelty.

He feels this more than sees it. Then he opens his eyes.

He’s in a hospital room, but it looks suspiciously like the rooms of MI6 medical, situated inside of HQ. It probably is, he realizes; they don’t sort out wounds like his at normal hospitals without asking questions, and SIS can’t have that. 

He feels bandages on his chest and thighs, and sees them on his fingers. There are needles in his arms and hands, and IV drips supplying him with what is probably water and nutrients. His vitals are being monitored on a screen next to his bed. His hair is still greasy; he can feel it sticking to his forehead, heavy and drooping. His body, however, feels cleaner than it has for months.

There’s another thing: He’s not alone. 

His single bed is not so much of a single bed, seeing as it’s pushed up against another. This ‘another’ has Bond in it. This Bond is awake.

When Q turns to look at him, he finds Bond watching him with a smile on his face; it’s small and mostly in his eyes, but Q has learned to read his expressions by now. As their eyes meet, however, it becomes wide and so very present. 

The sight of it makes all sorts of things well up in Q; flashing memories of that very same smile, sent to Q in the midst of the mania of relief. The distinct knowledge that he’s alive; that they both are. It’s a strangely jarring realization to have after having spent weeks thinking that dying, and doing it soon, was a certainty. 

Q says none of these things out loud, at first. Instead he smiles back; smaller than Bond’s grin, but still there. Bond chuckles through his nose. Q has to look away from it, and turns towards their sheets. 

“What’s this?” he asks. 

He runs his hands over the sheets covering the space between them, where their beds are pushed together, to signal what he means. His voice is croaky, and it makes him wonder how long he’s been asleep; surely not longer than four days?

“Psych has been by,” Bond says. “They’re worried that separating us would have us go cold turkey on each other. Apparently we’re in the psychological recovery state.”

“Or rehab,” Q says. “Are you my drug now, or what?”

Bond smiles again, still so large and real; his eyes glint with it. Maybe Bond really is his drug, because it feels like electricity in Q’s veins. Q is almost certain that his brain is some kind of messed up right now. 

Bond looks healthier, though. He, too, is bandaged up to the nines, but already his skin-tone is less ashen, and there’s a glint in his eyes that left them for the last month or so, to be replaced by the constancy of tension and desolation. His vitals are monitored in the same way as Q’s, and they are, if anything, a lot better than Q’s.

“Apparently,” Bond says, “I’m your comfort.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Q says. Bond is probably right, but like hell Q is going to admit that. 

“I’m not,” Bond says. “Psych’s words.”

“Hm.” 

Q watches Bond with his comfortable body, gentle hands and large grin, and he watches the foot or so of space between them. Bond probably wouldn’t mind if he closed it, the space. So, he does. 

He moves in, the last bit, but remains on his back instead of turning into him. That probably wouldn’t be a good idea with all of the needles. Their sides are pressed together though, and Bond’s arm comes up around his shoulders, so Q thinks that’s all right. They’ve done this before.

“They shouldn’t flatter you, then,” he says. 

The effect is lost even before it exists, because he is quite literally taking comfort in Bond’s body right now, but he doesn’t care; he needs to make the point anyway. 

He hears the huff of breath from Bond’s nose that he knows means amusement, before Bond’s hand moves up to his hair, and runs over it. He closes his eyes and sighs, and it doesn’t matter that Bond knows how much he likes this, because they’re probably way past lying anyway. 

“I’m glad you’re awake,” Bond says then. 

“How long was I out?”

“Over a week apparently.” Bond’s hand keeps running through his hair, but his tone becomes strained. “I’ve been awake for two days now.”

“Have you been watching me sleep, Bond?” Q asks. 

It’s a joke, but it falls flat, because Bond probably has, and not one part of that is amusing. There’s a tension in Bond’s tone, and it means fear and worry; it means he probably feared Q might not wake again. Q thinks he probably couldn’t have born surviving this alone; possibly, Bond feels the same. 

Bond turns his head towards him, and presses his forehead against Q’s temple. He inhales, one large breath, breathing Q in. His nose rubs into Q’s cheekbone. Q allows him to do it all without comment, because he thinks Bond probably needs this. They won’t talk about it, though, at least not yet; it would be too intense, too painful. 

Q turns his head as well, so their noses are aligned, and he can breathe Bond in, too. He smells of recently rain-wet wood tinted by stale sweat, but Q doesn’t mind. The sensation of the scent grounds him. 

Neither of them say anything for a while. Their foreheads stay pressed against each other. Q puts his hand up to the back of Bond’s head, to simply hold him.

“You know,” Bond says, eventually. His voices is low, the words breathed onto Q’s skin. “At least there’s one plus-side to this.”

“Is there?” Q seriously doubts that. 

“Hm,” Bond confirms. “Moneypenny has been pestering me about the X-files for ages, and at least now we have time to watch it.”

Q knows exactly what he’s doing, but it doesn’t matter, because it works; he chuckles, and it feels like relief in his chest, so he laughs again. It takes on a slightly hysteric edge, but it’s okay, because Bond chuckles too, low and deep in his chest, and then he moves in to kiss Q’s cheek. 

“I mean, that does need to be redeemed,” Q says. 

Bond closes his eyes but smiles, and stays by his face. Q thinks they’re probably equally messed up now.

__

Medical realizes that he’s awake, and Q spends half an hour being checked over and answering questions about his pain levels. They tell him all of the things Bond has already told him, and then a little more, about how long he’ll be expected to be here and how they are helping him. 

Psych is next. He and Bond are separated as two of the psychologists come by. Q has talked to them before, and for a while all they talk about is how happy they are to see him.

“Conditioning,” they tell him then. “That’s what’s between you and 007 right now. Just like you’ve been conditioned to associate the opening of a door,” (so they noticed, Q thinks), “with the infliction of pain, you’ve been conditioned to associate 007 with the absence of it.”

“Oh,” Q says. It seems a pretty plausible theory.

“Additionally we tend to form strong emotional bonds with the people we go through traumatic experiences with,” one of them – Dr. Latham, Q remembers – says. “You might have all kind of feelings about 007 right now, but we can’t exactly say how much of it are your actual feelings, and how much of it is the aftermath of your experience.”

Q considers this. He does have all kinds of feelings, and he’s not exactly great at sorting through them. Bond saved his life, probably, and several of his ribs too, if the fact of how often he tried to be taken instead of Q is anything to go by. 

“Well,” he says, “that’s not very helpful.”

Dr. Latham shrugs. Q is none the wiser.

 

The next person to come by is Mallory. He opens the door without knocking, and Q’s pulse does a jump on the monitor, because he’ll apparently never get over that one. Mallory watches the monitor with a neutral expression, and Bond’s fingers press to the inside of Q’s elbow.

Mallory debriefs them. MI6 has figured out who took them, and 008 and 004 are already out to crumble the organization from the inside, monitored with the new SmartBlood system, so they won’t be lost too. Bond pays more attention than Q does; mostly Q just watches and is fascinated by the pattern on Mallory’s tie. 

He doesn’t speak up until after Mallory is finished, and is about to leave again.

“I’m sorry,” Mallory says. “We all are. For how long it took.”

Q can’t use an apology for much. He does, however, have a useful request:

“I want a cyanide pill like the agents have,” he says. “And I want you to make damn sure that it works. If it doesn’t, I’ll be worse than Silva.”

He’s entirely certain he couldn’t survive another round with his sanity still intact and, besides, he wants to have the control of how he dies or lives next time. Bond twitches next to him, but Q ignores it, and thinks it’s probably good for Bond himself that he remains silent.

Mallory ponders him for a moment, but then he smiles. Q knows that Mallory respects him, and is thankful for that right now 

“Of course,” Mallory says. “I’ll take care of that. Let’s just scratch that last part from the record, yes? And let me remind you that you did just stay loyal to us despite a great temptation not to.”

Q smiles, too. He’s too invaluable to MI6 for his comment to have any effect on his prospects. He isn’t sure even Bond could say the same. 

“I think it was more the principle of not giving in to them,” he says. “Sir.”

Mallory’s smile gets wider, as he makes a note on the paper on the clipboard in his hands. When he looks up, he nods at Q, once.

“You’re lucky that we need you,” he says. Q smiles. He is thankful for this; the return of normal. If he could just do some work, he’d probably be getting better much faster. “The Service has been in a state without you.”

“Sir,” Q repeats, and Mallory nods at him again. 

“Q,” he says, in farewell. “Bond.”

When he leaves, Bond’s hand moves to cover more of Q’s arm. It’s a request for his attention, so Q looks at him and moves in a bit closer. Bond’s fingers touch his forehead.

“Are you planning to turn evil on us?” he asks. He sounds more fond than worried. 

“Evil is a subjective concept,” Q says. He does, however, move in the last bit to rest on Bond’s shoulder, as Bond’s arm comes up around him. Bond, as usual, touches his hair. Q doesn’t mind.

“Take me with you?” Bond asks. 

Q smiles to himself; Bond could never leave the Service. He is simply too much of a Queen and Country kind of guy.

“Sure,” he says, nevertheless. “England’s finest. We’ll be a great team.”

“Hm,” Bond says. He remains otherwise quiet, and Q decides to let him; all it is, is coping anyway.

__

Over the next couple of weeks Q is allowed to start working on projects from his hospital bed. Mostly it is equipment still in the development phase, but one day he’s allowed to do an update of the MI6 security system on his laptop, and hack into the secret messaging system of a terror organization.

What also happens during this time is that Q starts noticing just how much Bond touches him. Not inappropriately, at least not yet; no, what the touches are, is almost entirely comfort. Most of the time Q craves it too, if not outright demands it by pushing into Bond’s side. He thinks about “conditioning” and “trauma” and doesn’t know what to do about any of it. 

Most of the time Q just tries to deal with the anxiety that often wells up in his chest and throat and closes it off, so breathing becomes difficult, and to administer his nightmares. He notices that they’re less bad when Bond’s arm is around him during sleep, and he isn’t sure he likes that. 

He tries to think less. Instead, he works. Sometimes he lies awake at night, while Bond is sleeping, and, still, solves riddles in his head to keep the thoughts at bay. 

 

It’s one of those nights, and he is lying with his hands folded on his stomach and counting the tiles in the ceiling. 

Bond, it turns out, isn’t sleeping, like Q thinks he is.

“You’re awake,” Bond says. Q looks at him, but Bond’s eyes are closed and he’s breathing softly; he looks asleep enough to fool almost anyone.

“Yeah,” Q replies. 

“All right?” Bond’s eyes remain closed. Perhaps he doesn’t intent to open them at all.

“I don’t know,” Q says; it’s the truth. He seems to know very little lately.

“You can talk to me,” Bond says. Q shifts a bit on the mattress so their shoulders are touching. 

“Are you going to keep your eyes closed the whole time?” he asks. Bond smiles, just a little; a tug at the corners of his mouth.

“If it helps.”

Q is definitely not ready to talk about ‘conditioning’ and ‘comfort’ and all of those things in-between that might be going on with the two of them. 

That isn’t even his prime worry right now. Lying alone in the dark, watching a grey ceiling, reminds him of doing that for months and considering how many ways you could slit an artery or how he could convince Bond to choke him.

“I’d never wanted to die before,” he ends up saying. “I’d never felt it like that, with that kind of strength. I’d never wanted so much to just not be alive any longer.”

He stops looking at Bond, but instead looks at the top of the television screen hanging on the wall across from their pushed-together beds. Bond is silent for the time it takes Q to breathe in thrice. 

“I know,” Bond says then. Again, silence. Then: “Does it scare you? That you have the capacity for those thoughts.”

Q considers it. He supposes anyone would feel that way in the situation he was in. Still, thinking about it now, it does catch him red-handed just how strong the feeling was; just how intense. 

“A bit,” he ends up saying. “Mostly it scares me how intensely they managed to affect me.”

That’s true, too: it’s frightening just how easy it was for him to lose the core of who he thought he was, and turn into someone whose only motivation was to experience the absence of pain, in whatever way possible.

“What about how much you wanted them to suffer?” Bond asks. “Does that scare you?”

This time, Q barely considers it.

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t.”

He probably couldn’t work in MI6 if it did. He’s guided more than his fair share of agents through the process of killing someone; he isn’t squeamish about the idea of it. He’s made up his mind about the moral implications of it a long time ago, even with his belief that morality and the idea of evil is mostly subjective. 

Bond is silent again for a while after that, so Q is, too. He stops watching the TV screen, and turns his head just enough to watch the veins in Bond’s forearm instead; some of them punctuated by needles. 

“Why wouldn’t you kill me?” he asks then, after seven minutes have passed; he watches the clock. 

Bond reachs immediately; he draws in a breath, and it’s shaky. His fingers come up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he breathes it out again, and he turns his head away from Q. His free hand curls into a fist. Q watches Bond’s monitor, as his systolic blood pressure increases with a few digits. 

Q moves so he can grab Bond’s hand between his own, and uncurl it from its fist. As he does, Bond becomes just a little less tense. Q places the hand on the mattress, with the palm upwards, and runs his index finger over it.

Bond opens his eyes to watch him, before he speaks. Then he says,

“Because I’m selfish.”

He turns his head away again, and looks at the ceiling instead of Q. Q can’t quite figure out where this is going.

“Selfish?” he asks. Bond clenches his jaw and exhales. 

“I couldn’t kill you because I know you, and you’re a person to me.” Q thinks he understands; it’s easy to forget how human people you don’t know are and, ergo, it is easier to take their life from them. “Because I didn’t want to be alone, too. Because I like you. I didn’t want you to die.”

Q intertwines his fingers with Bond’s, and turns so he can push his nose into Bond’s shoulder. He doesn’t know how to comfort any other way than by touch; there isn’t much he could say to make this better. 

“I’m sorry,” he says anyway. 

“For asking?” Bond asks. Out of the corner of his eye, Q sees Bond’s head turn in the direction of their hands, probably watching them.

“No,” he says; not that. “I want to know. And I had to ask, back then. I’m just … sorry.”

Bond turns his face then, and their eyes meet. Q wants to touch Bond’s jaw, so he does, with the hand that held Bond’s before. It makes Bond draw in yet another big breath, and he shivers just a little.

“Me, too,” he says. 

Q tries sending him a soft smile, and runs his thumb over his cheekbone. He shifts a bit, so their foreheads can press together. Back in the other room he’d probably have kissed Bond, to give some sort of consolation and sympathy, but it’s too intimate now, somehow. Still, their breaths mingle.

Eventually, Bond closes his eyes again and Q watches him as his breath gets deep and he falls asleep. Q’s hand stays on his cheek.

__

Q starts going to actual therapy with Dr. Latham, and somehow it helps. Bond, a bit later, does too, although he doesn’t like it as much as Q does. 

He starts being allowed to walk around, although he is mostly taken places in a wheelchair. Eve starts coming by in the afternoon to take him to the roof, so he can get some fresh air. Q hasn’t felt the wind on his face for so long, that his skin nearly aches with it, but he loves it, so they do it again. Occasionally, Bond joins them.

It doesn’t pass Q’s notice how he has a tendency to move close to Bond whenever he’s around, and Bond has the same. It also doesn’t pass his notice how Eve watches them with squinted eyes, like she is pondering or deducing.

“Do you like him?” she says one day, when they’re alone up on the roof. She’s standing behind Q, massaging his scalp. Q is grateful; he craves uncomplicated, gentle touches.

“Bond?” he asks.

“Who else?” 

Q shrugs; for once, the movement doesn’t ache anywhere in his body. It’s a novelty that Q is starting to get used to again.

“I don’t know,” he says. He watches the rooftops of the city, and the Gherkin not far away. Eve keeps touching him.

“You don’t know?”

“Mm,” Q affirms. “Psych calls it conditioning. I’m drawn to him by instinct because of what we went through, and what he was associated with. I mean,” he realizes, and says, “I do like him. Very much. I just don’t know how much of that like is actually me and my feelings.”

“Hm,” Eve says. “Couldn’t psych help you with that?”

That is, actually, a rather good idea.

__

Q does talk to them about it. He gets back into his room, and finds Bond sleeping. Getting into his own bed with a little help from the staff, he asks one of them to get Dr. Latham. 

When she arrives, he gets straight to the point:

“So,” he says, “it’s been a while now, right? Since we came back.” Generous wording, that, he thinks to himself. 

“Is this about Bond?” she asks, interrupting him. Q doesn’t know if she’s good, or he’s predictable.

“Yes,” he says. “It is. I like him. Or do I?”

Dr. Latham smiles. Also, Bond’s fingers twitch where his hand is lying on the mattress; Q sees it out of the corner of his eyes. It could be a simple body-spasm that happens during slumber, only Q has slept a lot with him by now, and Bond doesn’t move a millimeter when he is sleeping except when he turns to a different side. 

Ergo, he is awake. Oh, well; he might as well hear this, Q thinks. It concerns him, too.

“Your bond is very strong,” Dr. Latham says. “Stronger than we usually see in these kinds of situations. At least if the people concerned aren’t necessarily fond of each other.”

“Which means?” Q prompts. He’s very aware of the tension in Bond’s shoulders, although he does some impressive work of keeping his breathing and pulse at the same level as if he were resting. 

“I can’t tell you exactly,” Dr. Latham says. “But I can tell you that everyone around here observed the chemistry between you two already before you were captured. There were bets about when you would shag.” 

Surely, Q thinks, saying that is breaking some sort of regulations. Bond’s chest shakes once, probably with a chuckle. Q hopes she doesn’t notice, and attempt to kick Bond’s foot shielded by their covers. 

“So you’re saying it’s probably not just the conditioning?” Q asks. Dr. Latham nods. 

“I can’t be sure,” she says. “But it’s probably not, no.”

Q falls silent to ponder this. His biggest aversion to the feelings he’s having, is the idea that they’re not entirely, if at all, his own. His biggest fear is that none of Bond’s feelings are his own either, and that they will slowly subside and Q will be left feeling empty and embarrassed. 

Eventually, Dr. Latham leaves. As soon as the door closes behind her, Q turns to Bond.

“I know you’re awake,” he says. Bond opens his eyes. He’s smirking, and Q sort of wants to wipe it off him. With his hand or with his lips, he doesn’t quite know. 

“’Probably not’ is some pretty good odds, don’t you think?” Bond asks. 

Q is stuck between huffing in annoyance and smiling. He does some complicated mixture of the two, and gives in enough to shift and press his side against Bond’s, until Bond, as usual, touches his hair.

“Listening in on other people’s conversations is rude,” he says. He does, however, sigh in content when Bond tugs at his hair, touches the nape of his neck lightly, and massages his scalp. 

A silence falls over them, and they share it for a while. Q thinks about ‘odds’ and ‘feelings’ and isn’t entirely sure what he wants. No decision seems to exist in a vacuum right now; whatever he does, it will affect something else.

“You know,” he says, eventually, “I only kissed you back then because I thought I was going to die.”

Bond keeps touching him gently, but his body next to Q’s tightens just a little with tension.

“I do know,” he says. So it’s not the conversation topic that tenses him up; possibly it’s the mention of that room or death.

“Hm,” Q says. It’s not entirely true that he doesn’t know what he wants. He does know; he just isn’t sure if he’s ready for what it might bring.

“Do you also know that I still want to kiss you?” he says, in the end. Bond draws in a quick breath. “Even now that we’ll stay alive?”

“No,” Bond says. His voice sounds smaller than usual. “I didn’t know that.”

“Hm,” Q says. 

Bond doesn’t reply, so he turns to his side – he can do that now, without wincing in pain – and curls himself around Bond’s body as much as possible. He doesn’t need to put his hand to Bond’s chest to feel his slightly-faster-than-usual-heartbeat, because he can see it as a digit on the monitor, but he does so anyway. Bond leans in to him. 

Again, there’s silence, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable or heavy. Q is used to this; he’s used to Bond’s touch standing in for actual conversations with actual words. He doesn’t mind it. 

He’s drawn to Bond’s face, wanting to touch it, so he does. He turns his head upwards, so he can watch Bond’s expression, as he runs a finger lightly over his facial features; his forehead, his eyebrows and the spot between them, his cheekbones, nose-bridge and his lower lip. 

Eventually his hand stills on Bond’s cheek, as a palm pressed gently to it, and Bond turns his head to smile softly down at him.

“You know, if we hadn’t been imprisoned together, I’d probably just have walked up to you one day and kissed you,” he says. Q isn’t sure if he’s surprised or not.

“Really?” he says. He shifts a little, to get in a comfortable position to watch Bond’s expression, and makes his tone light and teasing.

“Hm,” Bond affirms. His index finger runs over Q’s upper back. “How would you have reacted, do you think?”

Q barely has to consider it; the thought, however, makes him smile.

“Quite in your favor, probably,” is what he says. “Psych is right, for once.”

Bond grins, and it’s glinting and warm and alive. Q wants to touch it, so he does, as Bond moves his head in closer. Their noses press against each other from a shifted angle, and Q’s lips are by the lower part of Bond’s cheek. He breathes him in. 

“I think I’d still have liked you, even if I weren’t conditioned to need you,” he says. His tone is quiet, to match the languor. It isn’t like he’s only just realized, but it’s close. 

Bond lets out a breathy chuckle and smiles, again, and it makes the corners of his mouth nearly stretch to where Q’s lips are.

“Romantic,” he says. 

As his lips move around the words, Q catches the top one between his own and presses in; kissing him. Bond, for a moment, smiles under it, but then he kisses Q back. It’s soft and quiet, and still feels mostly just like a touch of comfort, except now it also has a promise hidden within it.

It’s Q who pulls back again, but he stays by Bond’s face, and Bond kisses the corner of his mouth once more.

“Romantic enough for you?” Q asks. 

Bond grins.

__

One day Mallory comes by their medical room and, finally, says, “So, maybe we should talk about living situations.”

Q is instantly awake. He’s been in this room, now, for over a month, and he’s starting to get bored enough with staying in bed that he’s getting snappy and easily annoyed. His retorts to Bond have started getting more snarly than sassy. Bond, though, seems to find this more amusing than frustrating, and he mostly reacts by chuckling. 

Things still hurt, but it’s nothing compared to what it was before, and he’s pretty certain he’s ready to be without supervision soon. 

“Yes?” he says. He sits up straighter and, next to him, Bond does too.

Apparently, and thank God for it, neither of their flats have been sold, because they never actually reached the status of ‘deceased’. If Bond had been alone, Q thinks, all of his possessions would’ve been sold by now. He’s almost glad that he was there, too, so MI6 took it serious enough to find them again.

“When can I move back in?” Q asks. “Can I come back to work? Please say soon.”

Mallory smiles like Q is amusing, but Q doesn’t particularly care if it will get him working authorization. 

“Medical says next Friday,” Mallory says. 

Q is so relieved that he laughs; it bubbles in him, and bubbles over with joy, the idea that things can finally go back to resembling some sort of normal. He’s sure that being forced to continuously engage with the memories and fact of their captivity can’t be good for recovery. 

“Me, too?” Bond asks. 

Mallory nods, and when Q turns to watch him, Bond is grinning as well. Their eyes meet, and it’s almost as elated as it was when they were saved the first time. For a moment Q lets himself stay in that, but then he turns back to Mallory:

“What about work?” he asks. 

“You can start the Monday after you’re out of here,” Mallory says. “But I’ve been asked to make sure your work week doesn’t exceed thirty-five hours during the start-up.” 

It’s so much less than how much Q usually works that it’s almost comical, but he’s not about to complain; just being allowed back is good enough for now.

“I’ll take it,” he says. 

“We have someone ready to help you get retrained,” Mallory says to Bond. “Starting, also slowly at first, on the same Monday. If I can’t interest you in active field retirement, that is?”

Bond scoffs, and Q smiles too; as if. 

“I think I’ll decline,” Bond says. “Sir.” 

Q chuckles. Probably only half of his mirth is because this is actually funny. Some of it is simply the elation of finally being allowed to do something other than lying around. Most of it is recovery; finally seeming within reach. 

He is still smiling when Mallory, a little later, leaves them, and Bond’s chin comes down to rest on Q’s shoulder. His fingers press to the inside of Q’s elbow. Q is only vaguely aware of it, in the midst of his renewably buzzing thoughts. 

Bond’s thoughts, apparently, are somewhere a bit different than Q’s, because then he speaks, and draws Q back into the real world.

“Move in with me?” he asks. 

For a moment all Q is, is surprised. The request is something so far from the things he’s been occupied by, that it feels like a strange outlier of a thought. 

“No,” he says. Bond’s face doesn’t fall, which is a good sign. In fact, he grins. “Fuck no. I need to know that I can be on my own first. And you don’t exactly have a great track-record with relationships.”

“You’re different,” Bond says. Like he is amused though, more than like he is trying to convince Q.

“Am I?” 

“Hm,” Bond affirms. 

Q is a bit confused about how happy Bond seems, as he moves in, and presses his lips to the spot on Q’s cheek just beside his ear. He stays there, rubbing his nose against Q’s skin. He doesn’t elaborate.

“All right,” Q says. He just might take Bond’s word for it, actually.

“But you won’t move in with me?” 

Q chuckles. Bond sure is something. He turns his head so they can watch each other, and he can smile into Bond’s cheek. Bond’s arm comes up around him; it’s familiar and, simply, nice. Q smiles to himself.

“No,” he repeats, still. “I’ll come over though.”

“And do what?” Bond’s tone is low and growly, and Q is absolutely certain that he’s flirting. Despite it all, they haven’t done much of this. Bond hasn’t turned all of his seductive prowess on him, yet. Q just might be excited for when he does. 

“Sex, Bond,” he says, and bites his grinning lip when Bond laughs. “I think you’re familiar with the concept.”

Bond keeps smiling. His expression is smug, though. When Q tries to kiss him, Bond turns his head a little away from him, so he can’t. Q groans in annoyance and tries again, but Bond turns away once more. He chuckles, and clearly thinks he’s the epitome of amusing. 

“Tease,” Q says. Bond smiles, and Q kisses the part of him that he can reach; maybe that’s all right, too.

__

It doesn’t mean that everything is all right. 

The next Friday, Eve drives Q to his old flat. It does feel strange, being back out in the real world like this, with cars and kitchens and his old, homemade blankets. It doesn’t pass his notice how intensely Eve watches him, probably looking for signs of distress, but he doesn’t mind; he just might need it. 

As it turns out, when he isn’t dozed out on medication and sharing a bed with someone else, his nightmares are a lot worse. He visits medical on his first Monday back, and the sleeping pills are only a small part of the pile of the ones he has to take daily.

He gets back to work, though. Q-branch welcome him back with open arms, and the first day, when someone comes by Q’s office with a cup of tea, calls him “Sir,” and asks him a work-related question, Q is so relieved he could cry.

The part where he’s only allowed to work thirty-five hours a week turns out to be the opposite of a problem, too. In the beginning, he can hardly make it to four o’ clock, before he feels like he’s about to fall off his chair with exhaustion.

Slowly, however, it gets better until, one Wednesday afternoon, he gets so caught up in a project that he stays until nine pm, and things start feeling like they could go back to where they were before. Eve finds him in the lab and when she tries to hug him, Q lets her.

Bond gets back to work, too. He comes into MI6 almost daily for retraining, and when he isn’t there, he’s running along the Thames or doing parkour in various parts of London. Occasionally Q hacks the CCTV to follow his movements. 

There’s another thing: Bond comes by Q-branch for lunch every day, without fail. He’s often sweaty and in running gear, but he has food and tea with him. Q-branch stops caring surprisingly quickly. 

One afternoon they eat their lunch on the roof, and Q is leaning against Bond’s shoulder, when Bond says, “You’re getting better.”

Q straightens a little, so they can actually watch each other. Bond’s arm remains around him. When Q runs a hand over Bond’s forehead and hair, Bond smiles; Q touches him more and more now, too. 

He hasn’t been over to Bond’s yet, and Bond hasn’t asked him to; it’s like they’ve reached the wordless agreement to see how they feel when they’re apart, first. Q feels good, though; good enough, perhaps, to come by soon. 

“Yeah,” is what he says. “I am. You are, too.” Bond watches him, raising his brow. “You run faster, now. And longer.”

Bond smiles then; one of those that are almost larger than his entire face. Q smiles as well, and lets it be wide and big. 

“Do you spy on me, Q?” Bond asks. His tone is teasing, so he probably doesn’t mind. 

“Yeah,” Q says. Bond chuckles, low and deep and reverberating in his chest. 

It’s the kind of sound Q wants to crawl into to, and mark for his own; plant his name firmly on and take for himself. These feelings, he’s sure now, have nothing to do with conditioning, and everything to do with them.

“Do you think we’ll ever be all right?” he asks. He puts his hand up, and runs his thumb over Bond’s forehead until it goes slack underneath his touch, and Bond’s expression turns soft. 

“Yes,” Bond says. “I do.”

His arm tightens around Q, so Q is pulled in further. He allows it, and presses himself as close to Bond’s body as he can. His head is on Bond’s shoulder, and if Bond turned his head, he could kiss him. 

“You know,” he says, “I’m pretty sure that it’s me now.”

Bond watches him, and touches his hair.

“What is?” he asks. 

“Feelings.”

“Ah.” Bond grins, and presses it to Q’s forehead. Q bites his lip to subdue his smile, but is not entirely successful. 

“Me, too,” Bond says then. 

“Feelings?” Q asks. He nudges Bond’s nose with his own, and revels in their closeness. Bond’s fingers tug at the fine hairs at the nape of Q’s neck. 

“Mm,” Bond affirms. “Feelings.”

Q grins, and kisses him. Bond allows him, and keeps touching the nape of Q’s neck lightly, but puts his other hand up to hold Q’s jaw. Q cups his cheeks, and presses himself in close. He sighs into it, and Bond’s lips part beneath his own.

It’s the same as it has been in the sense that it feels natural, like the simplest addition to what they’re already doing, and in the sense that it feels like comfort and much needed warmth. 

It’s different, too. It feels just bloody brilliant; so much better than when he was in constant agony. He cups Bond’s jaw more firmly, and an instant flush of heat and want and affection rushes through him, spreading through all of his body faster than his blood can be pumped. 

He turns his body, and as his arms come up around Bond’s neck instead, his right hand resting on the back of Bond’s head, it becomes heated. He sighs as Bond’s hands are buried in his hair, and it feels like closeness in an entirely different way than it has before. 

“Come over for that date?” Bond says, once they pull back. 

Q is breathing heavily, and stays by Bond’s cheek. Bond’s hands keep running through his hair; Q imagined this part, the one where Bond tries to seduce him and he allows it, loads of times before they were captured. None of his imaginations were like this, but he wouldn’t want this any differently, now.

“Yes,” he says, and pulls back just enough for Bond to be able to see his smile. “I will.”

__

He does. 

That evening he comes by Bond’s flat. Bond has cooked for them, and there is wine, but Q ignores all of that in favor of kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, until Bond guides him towards the bedroom instead and starts unbuttoning his shirt. 

Bond is gentle with him, but doesn’t stop to look melancholy when he sees Q’s scars, and Q loves him for it. 

He ends up crawling into Bond’s lap, and he moans against the skin on Bond’s face, as Bond’s fingers open him. He feels quite pleased when he notices how it makes Bond’s hands tremble in arousal. He bites Bond’s earlobe, so Bond kisses him.

When Q sinks down slowly onto Bond’s cock, Bond’s grip on his hips tighten, and might be hard enough to leave bruises, but Q doesn’t care, he doesn’t care at all, because these are bruises made from pleasure instead of pain. 

He wants his entire body to be covered by them, like a canvas with a bad painting being painted over with something new. Bond’s breath against his collarbone is warm and leaves his skin humid; Q presses their chests closer and makes it hotter, so their sweat will mingle, too. 

He bites down on Bond’s shoulder, and then Bond’s neck, and when Bond asks him to leave a mark, Q knows that he feels it, too. So he does, and is rewarded with Bond’s hand on his cock, his thumb brushing over his glans. His surprised groan makes Bond laugh, and that’s all right, too. 

Afterwards they take a shower together, and Q chuckles as Bond tries to wash his hair and gets his fingers caught in the knots that have been formed in it. 

They eat their dinner from bowls back in Bond’s bed, as a movie plays on the telly. Q is still in Bond’s bathrobe, and is sitting cross-legged beside him. 

When they finish eating, he lies down next to Bond in his usual position, with Bond’s arm around him and his hand in his hair, their bodies pressed together. Bond is only in his pants, and after a while Q curls around him, and draws patterns on his chest instead. He closes his eyes, and allows himself to breathe Bond in. 

“You know,” Bond says, after a moment of silence, “I’m quite fond of you.”

Q chuckles deep in his chest. He turns his head upwards, so their eyes can meet. Bond’s expression looks nothing short of tender, as his hand comes up to run over Q’s forehead and his hair. 

“Really?” Q asks. “Tell me more.”

Bond grins, too; Q could get used to this. Bond looks at the ceiling, as if pondering, before he comes back to watching Q. 

“I like being around you,” he says. “I want you to be happy. And safe.”

Q almost can’t contain the feelings bubbling within him. To think that they could get to this place, after being where they were. To think that he has secured something like Bond’s affection, and that it is actually, well, _Bond’s._

“They call that love, Bond,” he says. 

Bond throws his head back laughing, and it’s loud and deep and surprised and real. Q wants to listen to it forever. He wants to always make that happen. He wants and he wants, and he’ll get, probably, because then Bond grabs his face to kiss him.

“Hm,” he says. “Interesting.”

Q chuckles too, but it’s swallowed by Bond’s mouth on his. He can’t say that he terribly minds.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading. Tell me what you thought in the comments?


End file.
